


what fire burns

by ProwlingThunder



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive
Genre: Galahdian Culture, Gen, Kidfic, Niflheim Takes Galahd, Pre-Movie, Worldbuilding, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27430579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: When she is very, very young, Andali sees the world change.
Kudos: 1
Collections: Fire In My Blood





	what fire burns

**Author's Note:**

> This particular fic was written with the headcanon of "the King's Wall covers a Rather Significant Portion of territory before it's pulled back".

The year Andali was born, there was war.

Not in Galahd, really. The King’s Wall warded them well, and no one knew war back then. It was too far away, too remote, and Galahd didn’t have access to that kind of information. And anyway, they had their own lives to deal with. There were plenty of beasts roaming into villages, and there was always call to hunt. Being under the King’s Wall didn’t mean that Galahd was any less rough than it had been before that, or after.

But across the oceans, on the far continent? There was war. 

And war has a way of spilling out into other places.

Andali is young, when the King’s Wall shatters. Desperately young, toddling around after her parents, her grandparents. She babbles in her native tongue, and she  _ delights _ in the world around her. There’s a certain level of fearlessness that comes with naivety, and Andali has that in spades. She’s too young to understand the risk of leaving the village, and they have good hunters for a place so small; in her short life, everyone has always come home.

But one night, looking up at the sky,  _ something _ has changed, and a tapestry of diamonds no one has seen so clearly in a long, long time stretches out before them.

In the night, the daemons come. In the morning, the army.

There is resistance, of course. There is always resistance to change. The people of Galahd are fierce and independent and do not take kindly to the invaders in their woods, their streets, in their homes.

The Niflheim army, in turn, bears no dissent.

Andali’s father and grandfather are burned in the village center with the rest of the men the Niflheim have slaughtered. It is a message no one readily forgets.

For Galahd, and for many others, the end of the world sits before them.

For Niflheim, this is the day the rebellion in Galahd is born.

(A few years later, the rebellion clashes with stationed soldiers, and her father dies again.)

The first year is the most difficult. Nothing, neither plant nor beast, is prepared for the change the loss of the Wall brings. Tidewater crashed against itself, brewing torrential waves that swept inland and destroyed all in its path. Storms kicked up, born from air currents shoving against one another, driving in the rain and water even further; funnels sweep across the islands, carving whole swaths of destruction.

Villages vanish. Gathering places vanish. Hunting grounds.

People.

So the first year is the hardest. Some villages are given back to the land as their people flee or die. Some villages open their arms to their distant neighbors, now brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, husbands, wives. Some Galahdians bow their heads and accept food and supplies from the occupying force, or go hungry, living on what they can to get by. Sickness sweeps across the land like a plague; some go to the soldiers, some do not. Some return home, and some do not.

Galahd does not change over night. But by season turn and turn again, everything has changed.

Andali is too young to understand this. But she knows sometimes she goes out to play and someone is missing, for days, for weeks. Sometimes she goes to lessons and the villager never comes.

Sometimes she goes to say hello to the soldiers. There are always soldiers, now. She is too young to remember when they arrived, too young not to believe they have always been there.

A child’s memory is short and fragile, as it is a child. A child has no built-in fear-- fear is taught, and Andali has not been taught to fear anything.

But children understand things adults sometimes do not believe they do. And so Andali knows the world is  _ wrong. _

In some ways the second year is easier.

Galahdian natives have seen a year without the King’s Wall, beast and man alike. The survivors know daemons crawl in the night and deep caves, under the darkest of ancient trees.

They know the true Wrath of the Tidemother and the Stormcaller the way their most ancient kin knew them, and the eldest survivors have shared with the young what they know of the time Before the Wall, what they remember from when they were babes. They know of the massive, sweeping waves and shrieking storms that last for days, dropping so much rain the rivers spill over and torrents flood the land. 

The few hunters learn to read the sky and the ocean, they learn the new paths their prey travels, for beasts often know more than men. They learn how to survive through the nights, and how to fight against daemons often more dangerous than their prey.

Villages still collapse into their neighbors, consolidating families, resources, knowledge. Hunters. It is only the second year, and so many have lost too many. Sometimes these things happen. This is the way things have always been in Galahd. In this respect, nothing much changes.

In many ways, nothing has changed.

In many ways, nothing changes.

When she is young, there is war. But the truth of the matter is that Andali simply does not understand what war is, and she continues to not understand for a long time.


End file.
